A TRIP DOWN MARKET STREET 1905 / 2005 (MX Entertainment) dvd 18.98
A San Francisco treat! Market Street is one of SF's most renowned main thoroughfares. Over a hundred years ago a gent named Jack Kuttner made a film about it appropriately titled A Trip Down Market Street. The rare pre-1906 earthquake film is a mesmerizing black and white silent cinema procession of horse and buggy carriages, automobiles, cable cars and pedestrians -- all captured through the unblinking eye of a stationary camera placed on the front of a cable car heading north on Market. A hundred years later two filmmakers Melinda Stone and Sprague Anderson made a new film which shares not only the name, but also the approach and spirit of the original. We have to say that one of the stars of this color re-creation are SF's wonderful vintage streetcars which have been acquired in recent years from cities around the world. They're always a treat to see and to ride. This dvd was produced by San Francisco's Exploratorium, and commemorates the centennial of the former, documenting the outdoor celebration and screening which took place on September 24th 2005 and compiles both of the films along with a whole lot of other Market Street inspired and related historic and newly commissioned filmworks and photographs. Although the original 1905 film was silent, both films were scored beautifully for this dvd by Beth Custer. A wonderful document!

AC/DC Family Jewels (Epic Music Video) 2dvd 21.00
Funny that a band can get so over-rated they become supremely under-rated. It could be that one of the best rock bands of all time has maintained their overall showmanship, but without the illustrious and crazed Bon Scott on lead vocals, their pure fire got lost in the huge rock-band-production of the '80s and '90s. Lightshows and media blitzes (not to mention excessive usage of their music for major league sporting events) seemed to dilute their early naked raw energy. Though, these days they certainly still do have raucous energy to spare, just ask anyone who's seen them in recent years. However, the young ravenous intensity of the band in the mid-to-late '70s is, in comparison, incredibly impressive to witness. Thankfully, several choice moments from that time in the band's career is presented on this Family Jewels (ahem) double dvd.
Disc one (20 songs from 1975-1980) features priceless footage of early performances and some incredibly scrappy but amazing music videos. Of the live shows, one that stands out is the footage from their notoriously impressive performance at University of Essex on a UK television series called Rock Goes To College.
In the music video for "Jailbreak" (which has become a staple on VH1 Classic), you see the band (with Angus shockingly in only something that looks to be a paper thin pajama set), freezing their asses off, "playing" the song with instruments up on some windy hill somewhere, "escaping from jail" and dodging some home-made explosives. The look of the film, quick cuts matched by the song's memorable sound quality make for one of the best music videos of all time. I get chills everytime I watch it.
In clip after clip, the surprisingly unpredictable and witty showman Scott keeps you thoroughly entertained. Keep an eye out for bagpipe-playin' Bon and schoolgirl Bon alongside schoolboy Angus! Speaking of which, the playfully rambunctious chemistry between the two is great, adding a totally distinct personality to their on-stage energy that's sadly missed in the later Johnson-era performances. To boot, it's pretty cool too to watch the evolution of Angus' student uniform.
Disc two (20 more tracks, 1980-1993) draws from the Brian Johnson years (AC/DC's singer after Bon's untimely death), and so one of the unexpected things that this double cd set inadvertenty offers is the opportunity for the Scott versus Johnson debate teams to re-ignite their rallying charges (just as the Iron Maiden Early Years double-dvd did for the Dickinson and DiAnno supporters). Which side are you on? So far, we're siding with Bon...all except for Allan who votes for Brian. You can take it up with him.

ACID BATH Double Live Bootleg! (Rotten) dvd 25.00
The dedication and worship and legend that this band inspires, even years after the end of their brief career is amazing. Not undeserved mind you, just surprising. Cult legends in the bayou's sludge scene along with Eyehategod, Crowbar, Down, etc... Acid Bath called it quits after the death of their bass player, and members went on to join Crowbar and Goatwhore after recording their post-Acid Bath masterpiece (and one of our favorite records) as the Agents Of Oblivion. But Acid Bath -were- amazing, melding furious grinding almost-death metal, buzzing hardcore, and super melodic hard rock ala Alice In Chains or Soundgarden. And writing amazing songs, evoking mystery and death and salvation and nihilism. It's sort of a crime they weren't HUGE. But maybe they are right where they should be, underground. Here's how we described our favorite Acid Bath record on a past list: "Imagine the sheer brutality of Eyehategod, the bluesy grind of fellow bayou residents Soilent Green, the stoned sabbathy swing of Trouble, and the melodic flair of late era Corrosion of Conformity or Alice In Chains, all forced onto one cd. Sound confusing? It is. But somehow, it gels perfectly, striking a pefect balance between catchy and heavy." While this is probably not the place to start for Acid Bath virgins (that would be their second full length cd 'Paegan Terrorism Tactics') this is a godsend for Acid Bath fans (like us) and an amazing document. Features multiple live performances of all their best songs from Boston in 1996, New Orleans in 1994, Metairie, Louisiana in 1994, Milwaukee Metalfest in 1994, Hollywood in 1996, Breux Bridge, Louisiana in 1996, Lafayette, Louisiana in 1996 and St. Petersburg, Florida in 1996. Also includes a video clip from 1994, rehearsals for their first demo in 1993 and a practice in their barn/practice space in 1992. Most of the video looks/sounds pretty good. All of it's interesting, and if you already love Acid Bath as much as we do, you already know you have to buy this!

ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE Dokonan (AMT) dvd 24.00
*Acid Mothers Temple alert!* *Acid Mothers Temple alert!* *Acid Mothers Temple alert!* Those alarm bells are ringing extra loud 'cause it's not just ANOTHER always amazing cd release from these Japanese hippie-kraut-psych-prog freaks... no, it's a tour documentary, their first-ever DVD, with live footage of fan faves "Pink Lady Lemonade", "La Novia", and big improv jam... also plenty of off-stage, on-the-road, behind-the-music, culture shock stuff (Japanese band, French filmmakers, USA tour). Bonuses on this DVD include a clip of AMT playing at the WFMU studio, and more. Limited to 1000 copies!

ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE Festival Vol. 5 (Acid Mother's Temple) dvd 21.00
*Acid Mothers Temple alert* *Acid Mothers Temple alert* *Acid Mothers Temple alert*
What do you get for the Acid Mothers Temple fan who already has dozens, if not hundreds, of AMT cds? Well AMT dvds of course! This is, like, their third in a year. You pretty much already know if you want it, if you're a fan of this Japanese band of spaced out hippie freaks -- particularly if you don't get many chances to see them live. This one, filmed live in Nagoya on the 9th of December 2006, is extra special 'cause it's got krautrock drumming legend Mani Neumeier of Guru Guru as a special guest. Also vocalist Jun Kuriyama from a band we don't know is another guest. The usual AMT suspects are also present: Kawabata Makoto of course, Tsuyama Atsushi, Higashi Hiroshi, and Tabata Mitsuru. Tracks include "Pink Lady Lemonade", "La Novia", and Guru Guru's "Bo Diddley" amongst other cosmic hits. There's also a drum solo from Mani, and a "plate solo" too, where he plays small metal plates scattered on the front of the stage. He must feel like it's 1971 all over again. Especially with the wild psychedelic liquid light show that bathes the band in swirling colors.
All regions, NTSC, a professional production shot with five cameras. And limited to 1000 copies only, ever.
(For total overkill, also new in stock, haven't watched it yet: AMT's Never Ending Space Ritual double dvd!)

ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE Never Ending Space Ritual (Swordfish) 2dvd 41.00
This newest Acid Mothers Temple dvd release, a double disc set, is pretty much essential for fans of that prolific Japanese freak-hippy musical commune. And we're not just saying that, like we would about any of their millions of releases. This is extra-essential 'cause it's intended as a "history of" the whole AMT phenomenon. And it pretty much proves them to be a "Never Ending Space Ritual" indeed! Heck, the menu loops alone are pretty cool... naked ladies and explosions and psychedelic effects, all right!
The first disc has two main sections. One features an example of archival live footage from each year of the band's existence, 1998 to 2007, plus an "early years" concert that's remarkably jazzy.
The other section includes video from a bunch of AMT "family" offshoots, including Acid Mothers Temple SWR, Acid Mothers Gong, Acid Mothers Guru Guru, and one we hadn't heard of before, Acid Mothers Temple & The Incredible Strange Band. During the Acid Mothers Gong segment, Daevid Allen pretty much out-freaks the entire band just by dancing (and wearing an outfit handed down from Madonna in her conical bra phase)!
On disc two (the main menu of which features video footage of the Father Moo album cover photo shoot!), you get an interview with Makoto Kawabata (in English), a bunch more live concert footage including performances of such faves as "La Novia" and "Pink Lady Lemonade", and a selection of extras -- among them a "guitar smashing medley"!!
So, even if you don't buy every last AMT thing to come your way, if you're at all into this band, this would be one to seriously consider picking up.

ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE & THE COSMIC INFERNO Hardcore Uncle Meat: Live In Croatia 2005 (AMT) dvd 19.98
We shouldn't be surprised. Japanese communal psych rock juggernaut the Acid Mothers Temple just released their first ever Digital Versatile Disc, like, a month or two ago. And while that one quickly sold out and is on backorder at our suppliers (drat!), now they've gone and already released -another- DVD! We have a bunch but probably they'll go quick too... Hardcore Uncle Meat is a document of a live show played by AMT in Zagreb, Croatia, 2005. It's a pro package, shot with three cameras, audio captured in 16-channel digital and mixed by Kawabata Makoto. And of course the performance is wild and heavy. So if you couldn't be there...
The back cover of the DVD, by the way, reminds us of what a "supergroup" AMT have become, as the pedigree of each member of the band is listed. This incarnation of AMT includes past and present members of Zeni Geva, Boredoms, High Rise, Miminokoto, Mainliner, Nagisa Ni Te, White Heaven, Ghost, Subvert Blaze, Andromelos, and more!
NTSC, region free, limited to 1000 copies.

AESTHETIC MEAT FRONT Temple Of Flesh (Old Europa Cafe) cd/cd-r/dvd-r 26.00
A while back we reviewed a record called Embalmer Tapes, from mysterious sonic terrorists Aesthetic Meat Front. That cd was a collection of processed sounds culled from the sounds of an actual embalming session, those sounds, scraping and suction and whatever other sorts of things go on during the process were collected and tweaked into a strange and haunting dronescape, and of course we sold out of them immediately (we actually got a handful back in if you missed out, see elsewhere on the site).
But the man behind AMF read our review and got in touch to see if we were interested in getting copies of a super limited releases celebrating the 10th anniversary of Aesthetic Meat Front. So here we have it, Temple Of Flesh a massive gathering of sights and sounds, a cd, a cd-r and a dvd-r, containing sounds and songs and sights and visuals, performances and rituals, all set to the glorious haunting soundscapes of Aesthetic Meat Front. This was limited to 180 copies world wide, we got 25 and we will NOT be able to get more.
So let's go one disc at a time. The first disc features the text from AMF's Temple Of Flesh ritual, translated into 12 languages, and then processed into a world of mysterious invocations and chants, industrial drones and dark ambience. A truly creepy, harrowing sonic journey, deep dark resonant smears of low end drift beneath martial drumming, and haunting chants, swirling snippets of sound, warbling and whirring, growled animalistic voices, bizarre ambient FX, jagged shards of industrial detritus, bursts of fuzzed out hiss and grinding slabs of rhythmic chaos, creepy chorales stretched into seasick soundscapes, disembodied voices drift and hover, snippets of found sound and conversation, all of these disparate elements woven into an epic, monstrous sonic tale of death destruction and mayhem, of blood and death and rebirth. So intense and strangely beautiful.
This limited edition version also includes a cd-r, that features tons of remixes as well as rare unreleased material. Also included is a dvd-r chronicling one of AMF's live rituals, an extensive modern primitive ritual featuring beautiful women in corsets, piercing, bloodletting, animal carcasses, suspensions, shaving, lots of blood and bodily fluids, very intense and graphic, all set to the creepy otherworldly dronescapes of Aesthetic Meat Front. Not for the squeamish or easily offended. As if that weren't enough, all three discs are packaged in a DVD style case, with full color covers, the bonus cd-r is housed in a hand numbered paper sleeve (numbered and decorated in blood!) as well as a handful of full color inserts, with photos from the rituals, text and assorted AMF related information.
SUPER LIMITED!!! Once these are gone they are gone for good....
MPEG Stream: "1"
MPEG Stream: "3"
MPEG Stream: "4"

AKRON/FAMILY Love Is Simple (Young God) cd+dvd 15.98
A fat new release from cult faves Akron/Family, a cd AND (while they last) bonus dvd chock full of their uniquely freaked mix of tribal chant, symphonically folky indie pop, catchy rock, improv abandon, and several extra kitchen sinks worth of sounds. It runs the gamut from quiet and pretty to joyously chaotic, via artfully arranged, dynamic songs. Perhaps their noisier, more out-there (yet composed) stuff is what we like the best, as when their collective voices rise together in sweet harmony in the midst of stomping jangle ramshackle drone jams. Whereas the more intimate singy songy stuff can get a bit sappy for our tastes. For us, it's things like the seasick distortion effect that takes over towards the end of the album that we want to hear more of, for them to take that path of fucked-upedness a lot further.
The weird thing about this band is that, despite all the craziness on the surface, somehow they just don't seem all that weird to us. Sure, they use a psychedelic array of bright colors all over the place ("There's So Many Colors" is the title of track 6) but still they're carefully coloring inside the lines. Nothin' dangerously experimental here, when all's said and done. We could compare 'em to another anarchic sonic collective, Volcano The Bear -- that is, if they sold Volcano The Bear cds at Starbucks. Quite nice, really, and no surprise they're popular. A safe choice though. And while they last, this first pressing comes with a bonus dvd with performance footage from their notoriously full-on live shows!
MPEG Stream: "Ed Is A Portal"
MPEG Stream: "Lake Song / New Ceremonial Music For Moms"
MPEG Stream: "Love, Love, Love (Reprise)"

ALICE COOPER Good To See You Again (Shout) dvd 15.98
Here's a long lost gem of a concert film -- anybody remember concerts? We mean CONCERTS!! Full on pull out all the stops, real rock and roll show concerts!!
In 1973 the Alice Cooper Band were a hard-charging unit that packed just the right sort of killer riffs and creepy crawly sleaze that would make them one of the biggest tour draws that year, out-grossing Grand Funk and even the Rolling Stones (and we do mean out-GROSSING, um... sorry)! This "midnight movie" shows the band onstage plowing through the hits with plenty of power and tightness to spare. Alice wears the filthiest of stage outfits, at one point sporting a big dirty toothbrush chasing down and trying to 'brush' some leggy young ladies all dolled up like "female teeth"! Hmmm...
We probably oughta mention too, that this is not -just- a concert film, there IS a plotline to the film. Well, kinda.
Seems there is a German Film Director and Alice and his gang don't like the production and proceed to trash the set, and much hilarity and chaos and all out weirdness ensues. The film goes from a few minutes of this stilted storyline improv back to a few songs performed live, and then back again to the "acting". Lucky for us the DVD has a "play concert only" option so after viewing the movie in its entirety, you can just enjoy just the music, as the band fires up and totally delivers the goods to a very "saucer-eyed-for-some-reason" young audience who just eat it all up, the props, the theatrics, the power riffs and the chaotic insanity for which Alice "the Eighth Wonder of the World" Cooper was legendary.
Also included on this (the original cut) of the film is a new surround sound mix of the audio as well as some theatrical trailers that feature that guy who did all the stark & scary voice-overs from the horror thriller previews back in the day as well. Good to see you again, Alice!

AMON DUUL II Play Phallus Dei (Repertoire) dvd 26.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
BACK IN STOCK! If you missed 'em the other week, here's another chance:
Seminal Krautrockers Amon Duul II are captured here on film doing what the title says, playing their debut (and perhaps 2nd best, next to their masterpiece Yeti) album. It's about a half-hour long, a psychedelic transmission from a far off time and place: Munich, Germany 1968. Fans probably need this, but we should give you a little more info. First off, it's more of an art film (Wim Wenders was one of the cinematographers!) than a live-in-concert document. In fact, while the soundtrack is very definitely a live performance of the mind-blowing hippie hoedown that Phallus Dei is, it's not exactly synched to what you see the band doing on the screen -- they're two different performances of the same material. Apparently the reason the audio and visual don't match up is because the band refused to stop playing, or do anything over, even when some of the cameras malfunctioned. So edits were necessary. But in a way it doesn't matter -- the weird disconnect just makes this all the more psychedelic, as you hear the violin before the musican starts playing it, or the bongos continue even when the drummer stops to get his hair out of his face. Not that this needs much help to be super psychedelic -- the colorful light show alone will trip you out, superimposed as it is over the long haired hippies in the band grooving out. Messing with your mind still further, the first part of the film (after a lovely opening sequence of the rising sun, later mirrored by shots of the sunset) is a fairly close up shot of just the band's two singers, and remains fixed on them even during a largely instrumental portion of the song. Renate Knaup looks bored (but sexy), while Shrat does his best to freak out on a tamborine which you can't hear. Then there's the portions of the film that show scenes of an artifically blue-toned German countryside as the camera drives past, that's fairly mesmerizing. The overall effect is enhanced by the scratches and spots on the time-worn film -- freeze-frame the opening sunrise sequence with your DVD pause button and you'll find many wonderful abstract compositions. Anyway, it's a historical musical document as well as an intriguing art flick -- when it screened at the 1969 Edinburgh Film Festival, American director Samuel Fuller (Shock Corridor) was quoted as saying "It's rough, it's vicious, it's drama". And here's what that festival's program guide had to say, to put you in the mood: "This film will be shown without titles or credits. It is in colour and you will see the German rock group Amon Duul II -- which, apart from Amon Duul I, is the only true progressive and outstanding group from Germany -- on stage with their celebrated light show...Their sound is very heavy, weird, and wild. Imagine a cross between Hapshash, Spooky Tooth, Dr. John and Jethro Tull."
As a sort of bonus, this dvd also features a slide-show style discography featuring album artwork and snippets of songs from each of their umpteen releases. There's nothing else in the way of special features except for the surround sound in place of original mono option.

ANAGNOS, PHILIP / BRUCE HAACK Haack - The King Of Techno (Koch) dvd 21.00
King Of Techno??? Hmm. Well, the story of Bruce Haack is a tough one to tackle. He was an introvert of sorts, wildly imaginative, innovative and certainly the odd man out. A small town boy from Alberta, Canada that moved to NYC to make it big, only to become disillusioned by the soul sucking corporate music industry. What remained constant was his cosmic vision and communication through his visionary and otherworldly music. Until the late nineties, he was an obscure footnote in the history of early electronic music. But thanks to underground tape trading and rabid fans spreading the word, reissues and compilations have surfaced, resurrecting the legacy and world of Bruce Haack. Thankfully, we can now place a visual element to the imaginative sonics of Bruce's electric language via this newly produced film documenting the composer's life. In addition to archival television appearances and rarely seen photographs, we get wonderful stories from Bruce's colleagues and collaborators (Ted Praxiteles Pandel, Miss Esther Nelson, Chris Kachulis), and anecdotes from some of the original children featured on the Dimension 5 records! The rare television segments are the highlight of this documentary, including the legendary I've Got A Secret episode in which Bruce plays his Dermatron (*see footnote below*) on pianist Ted Pandel, as well as the 1968 episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood in which Bruce demonstrates his musical computer! Unfortunately, the television appearance of Bruce performing the Dermatron on twelve girls (each pitched according to the western standardized chromatic scale) is not mentioned or shown.
And there are a few other omissions...for instance, as Don Bolles (Germs, 45 Grave, Kitten Sparkles, Three Day Stubble) was integral to the introduction of Bruce Haack not only to the filmmaker himself, but to the American underground throughout the nineties via his radio shows and travelling sound system, it would have been interesting to hear his take on Haack. Bolles, a longtime Haack fan and record nerd, was largely responsible for spreading the word as well as the distribution of cassette dubs to many friends. In fact, my first introduction to Bruce's music was via his gushing words about the man. Furthermore, experts like Irwin Chusid, Robert Moog, Russell Simmons (who commissioned the unreleased, yet widely pirated Party Machine) and like minded folks who long knew of the genius of Bruce Haack could have brought forth some insightful perspective.
So while Philip Anagnos' debut as a documentary filmmaker is a wildly ambitious one, some fans of Bruce's music will certainly have issues with context and some of the interview subjects. The large work of Bruce Haack transcends the limitations that the word "techno" conjures, as there is a massive genre of electric music that isn't necessarily "electronic". Once again, techno is a topic of controversy here as Anagnos got a lot of flack for this film's subtitle. Admittedly, he states that he called it as such simply because it "sounded really good", so don't let that turn you off this film completely. Definitely a door opener for those new to the music of Bruce Haack, just don't close that door on the way out...
*footnote* FYI The Dermatron was an early invention of Haack's, somewhat similar in design to the theremin. With the theremin, human hands control electronic capacitance via metal rods connected to the oscillators which emit variable frequencies. The Dermatron's capacitance is controlled not through metal rods, but through two separate currents which are connected to two separate human bodies. These two bodies act as the controllers of the oscillators, so when the two bodies touch, variable frequencies are created with the variable placement of flesh to flesh. Or something like that...cool!

ANGER, KENNETH The Films Of Kenneth Anger: Volume One (Fantoma) dvd 24.00
Such a momentous occasion! Renegade American filmmaker and (oc)cult figure Kenneth Anger's early works have finally been released on dvd! Fans and disciples, you need squint through fuzzy faded VHS and 16mm copies no more. The five shorts were meticulously restored by the UCLA Film Archive, and the dvd features crisp, high definition transfers. Anger's films haven't looked this vivid in decades. Stunning! Works include Anger's debut Fireworks (a sailor fantasy / nightmare gay cinema classic from 1947); Puce Moment (a 1949 short which exudes the absolutely giddy glamour of early Hollywood); Rabbit Moon (a mesmerizing black and white dream from 1950) - the original 16-minute long version could easily be imagined as an alternate-universe mime scene from Marcel Carne's 1945 cinematic masterpiece Children Of Paradise; the mystical garden stroll of Eaux D'Artifice (1953); and last but not least Inauguration Of The Pleasure Dome (dripping with garish colors and bizarre bacchanalia, this film from 1954 was Anger's filmic launch point into the rites and mysticism of Aleister Crowley).
The dvd extras include extensive, frank commentary by Anger and rare outtakes from Rabbit's Moon. Indeed, Anger has long been known to go in and tweak his films years after their 'completion' -- changing music, re-editing scenes, adding, subtracting. Ardent, eagle-eyed fans will probably notice a few such cases on this dvd. And if that's not enough for you, there's also a big 48-page book filled with rare photos, stills, storyboard sketches, and an introduction penned by Martin Scorsese.

ANGER, KENNETH The Films of Kenneth Anger: Volume Two (Fantoma) dvd 27.00
As varied as they can be, Kenneth Anger's films are pretty unmistakable. This Volume Two dvd set is just as stunning as its predecessor. The restorations are immaculate, the soundtrack vibrant. Details pop out that we were never able to distinguish on our old grainy vhs dubs. From the seemingly random assemblage of the Technicolor hued magickal aesthetics as seen in 1969's Invocation Of My Demon Brother (which incorporated pieces of an aborted version of his film Lucifer Rising as well as footage of a staged ritual deeply inspired by Anger's hero Aleister Crowley and featuring a cameo by Anton LaVey and a Moog synth soundtrack by Mick Jagger) to the pastel powder puffed homoerotic hotrod dream of 1965's Kustom Kar Kommandos to the bikers'n'black leather homoerotic motorcycle club dream of 1964's Scorpio Rising (shot like a documentary, it captures the period's dark visceral energies, the cultural and consciousness explosion, the social rebellion -- arguably the beginnings of protopunk); from the fiery Egyptian golden luminescence of 1981's Lucifer Rising (complete with soundtrack composed and recorded by Bobby Beausoliel in his prison cell) to the 1979 version of Rabbit Moon with its unexpectedly well-suited rock song soundtrack (an earlier version appeared on Vol.1)... Really, what's not to drool over? Through Anger's gaze objects, symbols, songs and people are fetishized to an intoxicating state. Even to those without an interest in avantgarde film, a schooling in esoteric knowledge, or an affinity with fringe communities, the images are nothing short of spellbinding, especially taking into consideration the time period in which they were made. The lone disappointment we found was in Anger's commentaries which come across as surprisingly uninspired, often vague and less than informative. Best to let the films speak for themselves -- a delicious visual feast!

ANIMAL COLLECTIVE Grass (Fat Cat) cdep+dvd 10.98
A special treat for Animal Collective fans! The audio portion of this cd/dvd combo offers up the super buoyant tune "Grass" from their last album Feels, and accompanies it with a more abstract "Fickle Cycle" and a third number titled "Must Be Treeman" which is sorta like an Animal Collective microcosm encapsulating their catchy poppiness and more bizarre musical behavior in one track.
The dvd features videos for "Grass" (European tour footage from last year presented in washed out negative), "Who Could Win A Rabbit" (a 'bad trip' starring humans in fucked-up bunny and turtle costumes), "Fickle Cycle" (the most artsy fartsily layered of the bunch -- footage shot while they were recording, grainy segments of a guy shaking his head furiously, projections on a guy's head wrapped in a sheet, hazy close-ups of an eye and with a soda pop product placement) and another live one of "Lake Damage" from a 2004 tour.
MPEG Stream: "Grass"
MPEG Stream: "Must Be Treeman"

APPLE, FIONA Extraordinary Machine (Epic) dualdisc 19.98
Oh Fiona...you make everything so difficult, but we love you for it. The album that we thought might not ever come out. You maybe heard about the early Jon Brion version that apparently the record label said no to. But then Fiona said actually she didn't like it and it was her choice to re-record it. She enlisted sometime hip-hop producer Mike Elizondo and the result is maybe her best record yet! But beyond all the confusion and delay and mixed messages the important part is that Fiona is for sure one of the smartest pop stars around. Her songs so rich and her voice always so evocative and dead on. In a perfect world she would be number one on the pop charts without a doubt. The dual disc includes live performances at Club Largo (where Jon Brion did his residency) as well as a really funny video for "Not About Love" starring chubby bearded comedian Zach Galinakis. Speaking of "Not About Love", has their ever been a heavier torch song? We don't think so, you can almost imagine Codeine or some doom metal band covering it, with it's weird stop start chorus and pounding minor key dirges. So amazing. Apple may be one of the only real divas who will stand the test of time.
MPEG Stream: "Not About Love"
MPEG Stream: "Extraordinary Machine"
MPEG Stream: "Get Him Back"

APPLE, THE (MGM Home Entertainment) dvd 14.98
We'd never heard of this nutty 1980 Menahem Golan flick before, but a friend clued us in to the existence of this new DVD release of the film and we're glad he did. Within mere moments of the beginning of this movie, you will likely determine that it is in fact possibly THEE most ridiculous thing you've ever seen. Not possibly, probably. Most certainly. It is. The Apple is a campy musical set in the future (1994!) where everyone wears futuristic outfits (big shouldered jackets) and drives boxy cars with space age fins. And it's just one over the top musical number after the other, all set to crazed psychedelic disco show tune music. There's absurd dialogue, glammy costumes, nonsensical narrative, and of course mucho singing and dancing. Quite the spectacle. Imagine "All That Jazz" meets "Logan's Run" or something like that. What plot we can glean from the goings-on involves the machinations of a Mephistophelian music industry mogul (Mr. Boogalow) trying to put a particular act at the top of the charts (and thence to, somehow, rule the world). Beyond that...it's confusing to say the least. At least it eventually becomes evident why the movie is titled The Apple (hint: it's of Biblical proportions). Truly incredible. It's such a kitsch classic, I don't know how we'd never heard of it before! Perhaps you have. In any event, after seeing just a few scenes, we knew we had to stock this. It's definitely the sort of thing that you might rather buy than rent, if only so you can always have it on hand to freak out friends who haven't yet seen it!

AQUA TEEN HUNGER FORCE Volume Four (Warner) dvd 34.00

AQUARIUS BUTTONS 2 x 1" buttons 1.00
Spread the word! Show the world your true aQ colors! COOL COOL COOL aQ buttons, in 5 different colors. TWO FOR $1!!! Colors are random, but buy enough and you'll be guaranteed to get 'em all! All 5 feature our spiffy James Gang style logo!!

ARMISEN, FRED PRESENTS: JENS HANNEMANN Complicated Drumming Technique (Drag City) dvd 15.98
To truly enjoy this dvd, from Fred Armisen, he of Saturday Night Live fame as well as bit parts in numerous funny big time Hollywood movies, and before that the drummer for Trenchmouth (remember them?), you need to either be a drummer, or have seen one of those super cheesy drum instruction videos. Preferably both.
Set up like one of those videos that seem to be playing in a constant loop on the tiny TV set on the counter at Guitar Center, Armisen plays European fusion rock drummer Jens Hannemann, complete with accent, pony tail, soul patch, and sleeveless t-shirt. He performs some awesomely and brutally cheesy fusion jams, with his equally cheesy band, his drumming purposefully unfunky, and retarded. Not bad, just "Advanced" in a way few of us can handle! The songs are so bad, it's almost impossible to sit through them, but it's worth it, as after each track, Hannemann breaks his drum parts down, into totally nonsensical patterns, made up drum techniques, ridiculous time signatures, and he'll play it, then demonstrate it and count it out, then play it again totally different. The he'll play it fast, and then slow again. Hard to explain why it's funny, you really need to have seen some drum videos to get it, but if you have, you will.
The screen is peppered with various bits of useless information (like "0 bpm") and shots of his stumbling double kick work, and of course sweeping shots of his MASSIVE kit (at one point he says "of course, I hope you have 17 toms like me" as he's demonstrating some complex and shitty tribal tom jam).
These bits of drumfoolery are peppered with Armisen's other alterego, an East Coast, journeyman drummer, with a thick accent, who teaches us how to tune a snare, hold you sticks, and of course play a reggae groove. So dumb, and so goddamn funny. Also included are several pages of musical notation, which start out sort of playable, but by the final page, the notes are so dense, it's almost a solid black rectangle or an Asci program gone haywire.
Recommended for EXTREME drum nerds only.

ARNOLD, CHRIS Dark Out (self-released) dvd 9.98
Dark Out is a dvd by indie filmmaker Chris Arnold, and the 45-minute film features the music of many fond, familiar SF faces... Jolie Holland, Sonny Smith, Mark Growden, Sean Hayes, Ara Anderson, Virgil Shaw and Mark Eitzel to name a few. Certainly worth getting for the music alone which fits well with the visuals, a contemplative, grainy, black and white film shot in the yes, dark depths of night.

AT THE DRIVE-IN This Station Is Non-Operational - Anthology (Fearless) cd + dvd 15.98
Okay so now that a few years have passed and things have sorta flipped around -- i.e, kids are more likely checking out At The Drive In because they dig The Mars Volta (or Sparta for that matter) as opposed to vice versa (which was certainly the case shortly after ATDI disbanded in 2001) -- here's a comprehensive collection of the songs to get the kids up to speed on the ferocious firepower of Omar and Cedric's former emo-punk band.
There's loads of rare material to thrill their fans, both old and new! The cd features 18 tracks total compiled from a bunch of their early releases on the Offtime and Fearless labels, some split 7"s, their Grand Royal album Relationship Of Command such as "One Armed Scissor", as well as one previously unreleased song (a cover of The Smiths' "This Night Has Opened My Eyes"). This Station Is Non-Operational closes with another cover, this one is of Pink Floyd's "Take Up They Stethoscope and Walk".
The dvd includes videos for "Metronome Arthritis", "One Armed Scissor" and "Invalid Litter Dept.", an "Operations Manual" (aka an electronic presskit), their full discography, and some cd-rom extras.
The insert booklet lets the pictures do the talking, jam-packed with tour and live photos, and precious little in the way of liner notes.
MPEG Stream: "One Armed Scissor"
MPEG Stream: "This Night Has Opened My Eyes"

AUTECHRE Gantz Graf (Warp) dvd + cd ep 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Somewhere amidst the nervous clattery percussive goodness that is Autechre, melody resides. Intrepid listeners will hear timestretched vocals and pure tones behind the clickety clackety headlong rush to... well where *are* they going anyway? I'm not quite sure. Um, maybe it doesn't matter. This is more quintessential Autechre, impossibly chaotic but nothing new. It sounds good, though, especially the last track where the notes tumble out so manically, competing with each other for milliseconds of space that it just becomes one big melodic wash of texture, like sand turning into glass. Very nice. Twenty minutes, three tracks.
The DVD version of this adds three video tracks, including one by the amazing Chris Cunningham for the track "Second Bad Vilbel," whose visuals can be read as one robot's nightmare of loneliness after we got to see it fall in love in the Cunningham-directed Bjork video "All is Full of Love." Staticky, color separated and full of interference, this video, along with the two others, is pretty good and makes the extra $5 worth it. Maybe.

BAD ACID Tab 6 dvd / cd-r / magazine 29.00
Okay drug rock freeks, space rock explorers, doomlords, sludge demons, prog obsessives, metal maniacs, stoner dudes, noise nerds, and basically most of the other folks who read this here aQ list, Bad Acid is the magazine for you. And calling Bad Acid a magazine is a bit of a misnomer. It's more of a multimedia spacemetaldoomprogsludgenoise experience. You think we're exaggerating? A seventy minute dvd, an ELEVEN HOUR mp3 audio disc, a nearly two hour long label sampler, AND a 60 page booklet/magazine packed with liner notes, articles and interviews.
Packed with SO many aQ favorites, but just as many new bands we'd never heard, a bunch who could very well turn into new favorites. We've barely scratched the surface, since if we spent 14 hours on each review, the list would be, oh, about 5 items long. But from what we've heard / seen / watched so far, this latest issue of Bad Acid is pretty essential.
The dvd first, a series of music videos, film excerpts and slide shows, we were mostly excited about the scenes from an Antonius Rex movie, Antonius Rex being the dude from JACULA!! Tripped out and satanic and appropriately what-the-fuck. Some killer live footage of doom mongers Ogre, a killer art gallery slide show from the Malleus artist collective, featuring an awesome soundtrack from Morkobot, a Northwinds video, and then some more obscure stuff, Manatees tour video, Wicked Minds video, King Suffy Generator video, Lento live footage and tons more. All woven together by some super creepy animated menus.
Then there's the cd-r, featuring 11 hours of mp3's from Moss, Danava, White Hills, Barbara, Hey Colossus, Orange Sunshine, Capricorns, Khlyst, Acid King, Heresi, Raw Radar War, Fire Witch, Taint, Orange Goblin, Shinjuku Thief, Litmus and those are just the bands we know and already dig. 57 bands total, 102 tracks, tons of new bands to check out and discover. Also included is a label sampler focusing on the Bone Structure cd-r label, whose releases run the gamut from raw black metal, to buzzing industrial noise, to black ambient to grinding industrial weirdness. We actually have some BS stuff on the way, to be reviewed on the list soon, but this is a killer way to check out tons of stuff on the label.
And then there's the actual magazine component, with notes on each of the bands on the cd-r, a feature on each of the bands on the dvd, tons of info about Bone Structure and the bands on the label, as well as interviews with Fire Witch, Taint, Orange Goblin, and probably most exciting of all Alan Dubin, formerly of Khanate, talking about his new band Gnaw, which features folks from Burning Witch, Thorr's Hammer, Atavist, Enos Slaughter and Ike Yard(!). Man, we can't wait to hear that.
All of the above packaged in a standard dvd style case, with killer cover art from the Malleus Rock Art Lab. A bit pricey due to the weak dollar and the expensive overseas shipping, but pretty well worth it.

BAD BOY MADE GOOD: THE REVIVAL OF GEORGE ANTHEIL'S 1924 BALLET MECHANIQUE A Film By Ron Frank And Paul D. Lehrman (EMF Media) 2dvd 55.00
One of the most infamous pieces of music of the twentieth century and a long time AQ favorite, is the Ballet Mechanique, composed by George Antheil, a piece composed for 16 synchronized player pianos, seven electric bells, a siren, two human played pianos, an array of percussion and three airplane propellors. The strange thing is it was never played or recorded or performed the way Antheil envisioned it. Due mostly to the fact that at the time of its composition it was essentially unplayable, as many of the elements in the piece would not even exist until after Antheil had died (MIDI, computers, etc.).
This documentary is a fascinating portrait of the composer's life, his revolutionary compositions, his 'bad boy' reputation, his time in Paris hanging out with Stravinsky, his circle of friends which included Hemingway, Picasso, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, but it's mostly the story of the Ballet Mechanique, and how, for the very first time, forty years after it was created, it was properly performed, with every element present, and a sound as close to Antheil's original vision as had ever been realized.
The sound of the piece, even on the cd version we had a few years back, is INSANE, cacophonous, wild, intense, freaked out and so impossibly intense, and the story of Antheil, and his journey to the place in his life where he could come up with such a visionary sound, and the actual piece itself with all of the components in place and a sound even bigger and weirder and wilder and even more strangely beautiful, is an absolute wonder to behold.
Two discs, the first features the documentary, the second disc contains the entire premiere performance of the original orchestration of the Ballet Mechanique, extended interviews with Antheil's friends featured in the film, and the 1925 Ballet Mechanique film, complete with the newly realized version of Antheil's score. Amazing!

BAD BRAINS Live At CBGB 1982 (MVD Visuals) dvd 16.98
Bad Brains were (are?) arguably the greatest hardcore band of all time, and this collection of killer footage from three consecutive nights of shows way back in 1982 definitively demonstrate what a powerhouse they were. 1982 was indeed a good year for H.R. and the boys for sure, and by the looks of the crowd bounding all over the stage -at times it's hard pick out the actual band members -- they can do no wrong.
The dreads may still short at this stage, and yes, there are a few Rasta soliloquies here and there, but for the most part, the mosh level stays high. Frontman H.R. is always in command, staking out his little portion of the stage, and while axeman Dr. Know is still developing his craft, even back then, he was already blowing minds. And it sure is pretty weird to see the bald white kids skanking around to the stony-Jah riddums... But that's part of what made Bad Brains so bad ass. It's a very racially diverse crowd and everyone seems to be there to mosh or skank and not to fight or fuck shit up. Which is pretty cool.
The footage itself has a wonderful quality to it, especially for the era, the audio is good and it seems as though the video was compiled using the best songs from each of the three nights at CBGB. You can't go wrong with this, and we'd be hard pressed not to recommend this as CRUCIAL to your '80s hardcore video archive.

BARKLEY'S BARNYARD CRITTERS Mystery Tail (Load) dvd 14.98
A massive dose of drug drenched weirdness from Lightning Bolt / Load Records. This installment of Barkley's Barnyard Critters, a tale of an animal rock band, alchemy gone wrong, grave digging, and other bizarre mind bending ridiculousness, is the third, you may have glimpsed volume two on the Load Pick A Winner DVD from a few years back (the first was a super limited VHS tape, included here as a bonus feature!) and holy crap is this some gloriously demented stuff. AMAZING animation by Lightning Bolt's Brian Gibson, an incredible mix of computer animation, stop motion, and live action, totally amazing to look at, although the story is probably better understood high, but boy is it fun, crazy voices from a who's who or Rhode Island underground rockers, killer design, and again the animation! Wow. It goes from primitve and handmade, to totally high tech, often in the same scene. Gonna take a few viewings to totally understand what the heck is going on, but what a trip!
Bonus features include Wizardzz live (we made their most recent record a highlight a few weeks back), totally costumed up (how the hell do they play in those costumes?) the filmstock treated and colored to make it even more psychedelic, something called "Totem Tour", a four minute blast of brightly colored, spastic, psychedelic costume rock freakout, and the much more primitve first volume of Barkley's Barnyard Critters.
Highly recommended!

BARNEY, MATTHEW The Order: From Matthew Barney's Cremaster 3 (Palm Pictures) dvd 26.00
We've been selling these pretty steadily in the store for a while now, 'bout time we put it up on the website! Mostly likely you're already familiar with hip NYC artist (and Bjork boyfriend) Matthew Barney and his Cremaster cycle of surreal, big-buget art films. If not, we don't really have room here to explain, or even attempt to, but you can read our reviews of the various Cremaster soundtrack cds by Jonathan Bepler we sell for more info. This dvd consists of the final 30 minutes or so from Cremaster 3, a sequence featuring the athletic Barney fighting his way through a bizarre array of obstacles (Murphy's Law and Agnostic Front, tap-dancing girlscouts, gouts of vaseline, and a woman-cheetah among them) in the Guggenheim Museum! Of course it's frustrating that the dvd is only about a half hour long...apparently the full film is only available on dvd as a limited, signed, multi-thousand dollar "art object." Oh well. And it does include a commentary track from Barney, remixed music, and other extras. Certainly Barney fans will no doubt want this, and it would make a great gag gift for your conservative, curmudgeonly friend who's always making fun of modern/performance art, too! Region 1 only!

BASINSKI, WILLIAM Disintegration Loop 1.1 (Vector) dvd 29.00
Lots of folks feel lots of different things about 9/11. Some want to forget all about it. Some feel compelled to explore the emotions and feeling in their art. Some find the resulting art precious and annoying. And some are truly moved. So how you feel about this DVD really depends on where you fall in the above parameters. Disintegration Loop 1.1 is one hour long static shot of the New York skyline as it billows with smoke from the fallen twin towers. Accompanied by Basinksi's now famous / infamous disintegration loop, a found recording that had been slowly decaying, creating wonderful sonic effects. It -is- quite beautiful, and mesmerising, and the music perfectly captures the mood of despair and the emotional fragility of watching life as we know it literally crumble. Separate from the emotional and political overtones, Disintegration Loop 1.1 is a beautiful piece of (sound) art. But with the added resonance of the source material, it is a truly intense and disturbing thing to see and hear.

BAUHAUS Shadow of Light / Archive (Beggars Banquet) dvd 15.98
Both Shadows of Light and Archive had been made available in the '80s as collections of Bauhaus' videos and live recordings; and now they've been compiled onto a single DVD for your viewing pleasure. Shadows of Light originally featured all of the videos Bauhaus made, including the particularly grotesque chiaroscuro of "Mask" as well as four live tunes recored in stark black & white at the Old Vic in London. Archive fills in the remainder of the live material shot at that Old Vic show, albeit framed by a curious vignette of a Victorian gentleman being pursued by a couple of no-good thugs. Nonetheless, Peter Murphy stands out as a vampish hybrid of David Bowie and Iggy Pop during these outstanding live versions of "The Passion Of Lovers," "Dark Entries," and "Stigmata Martyr." Essential for anybody bit by the '80s revival bug.

BEASTIE BOYS Awesome: I Fucking Shot That! (Lionsgate) dvd 28.00
This dvd features live footage of the Beastie Boys performing at Madison Square Gardens back in 2004. Most of it was shot by audience members using fifty DV and Hi-8 cameras! The editing style is pretty darn chaotic at times -- you're definitely not going to feel like you're at the show -- but that just adds to the frantic, tripped-out, tricked-out fun that is the Beasties, don't it?! Lots of silly extras including a cappella tracks, band commentary and a 'documentary' about director Nathaniel Hornblower (aka Adam Yauch) that guest stars David Cross. This is sure to be a fan pleaser... especially if you were one of the peeps handling one of the cameras... hence the title...d'oh!

BELIEVER, THE December 2005 / January 2006 (Vol. 3 No. 10) - The Visual Issue (McSweeney's) magazine 10.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The Believer never lets us down. What a totally and completely amazing magazine. Music, politics, lifestyle, most mags can barely get a grasp on one of those, but somehow the Believer manages to wrap them all up together into a totally readable, smart and funny, gorgeously laid out package. This month it's "The Visual Issue" which comes with a DVD. Hard to explain what some of the articles are about in just a few words, so we'll just reprint what's on the cover: hacking old Nintendos, tattoo fiction, John Barth on old beginnings, the Malaysian new wave cinema, a lush art insert curated by Eric Fischl, milk addiction and the birth of modernity, life masks of the famous and the dead and loads more. Also in keeping with the theme, there is also a dvd that features films by or about: Spike Jonze, Selma Blair, Miranda July, David O, Russell, Patton Oswalt, Hovercrafts and more. Plus killer Charles Burns cover art!!!

BELLE AND SEBASTIAN Fans Only (Matador) dvd 15.98
Massive collection of videos, live performances, interviews, outtakes, TV appearances and a full length documentary. Over two hours of goodies. Haven't watched the whole thing, but from what we've seen it's pretty great, set up nicely, and some of the footage is truly breathtaking, fuzzy and dream like, while the behind the scenes stuff is pretty fun and funny. As the title makes clear, fans will definitely need this!

BEULAH / CHARLES NORRIS A Good Band Is Easy To Kill (Further Down Films) dvd 14.98
If your favorite band is SF popsters Beulah and you're still nursing your heartbreak as a result of their breakup, here's a posthumous audio and video treat to brighten your day. This dvd features a documentary of the band on the road back in 2003 touring the U.S. and Canada in support of their final album Yoko, as well as a heap of bonus material (live footage of the band performing seventeen complete songs, deleted scenes, etc). One thing that this dvd reminded us about is that they (well, particularly lead singer Miles Kurosky) sure do swear a fuck of a fucking lot. You might wanna keep it away from the eyes and ears of grannies and children.

BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL / TARENTEL / CHARALAMBIDES Nothing Out There #5 (Nothingoutthere) 3x3"dvd-r 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
We discovered this just a little too late. The first in a series of cool compilations, all insanely limited, dvd-r's with interviews and live performances, super fancy homemade packaging. But sadly out of print, a bummer considering how perfect this one seems for aQ. C'mon! Birchville Cat Motel, Tarentel and Charalambides! Limited to only TWENTY FIVE copies. Arghh. Well somehow we convinced the label to do another pressing just for aQ, so here it is, a killer triple 3" dvd-r set, gorgeously packaged, with three long time aQ faves.
Up first is Charalambides, recorded live in Hasselt 2006, several songs, lovely as always, dark and funereal, ethereal, gorgeously shot, super close ups of the guitar, lips against a microphone, lit in reds and blues and purples, a dark stage, nothing but the two players... Really nice, intercut with simple abstract animations and interviews with the band.
The second disc is Birchville Cat Motel, recorded live in Gent 2006, and features Campbell Kneale, aka Mr. BCM, lurking on a hellish looking stage, all red lights and dry ice fog, just Kneale's figure hunched over his instruments, mic stands like demon's claws reaching up through the mist, a huge pair of painted eyes behind him on the wall.
Kneale sort of swaying back and forth in a total trance, wearing a black mask, singing and twiddling knobs, in a surprisingly tiny space, playing to about 20 people, the sound appropriately massive and thick, even mixing in a loop of Metallica (!), electronic bagpipes, and a Buddha Machine. Awesome. Also includes an interview with Kneale, talking about how nobody in NZ knows who he is, and about his very normal, run of the mill life, he's a school teacher, recording as a solitary process, and other cool stuff.
Finally, the third disc features Tarentel live in Geneva and Bern 2006, interviews with the whole band, talking about the development of their sound and creating new sounds, their approach to music making, improvisation, etc. The live stuff features beautiful films drifting behind the band, who are all cloaked in shadow, the sound dark and abstract, low shimmers and abstract drones, thick and textural, fluttering horns and whirring guitars woven into thick rough expanses of muted growl and soft focused creep, laced with tripped out dubby drums.
The video includes shots of the club, the bands wandering around, exterior shots, all woven into the super striking live footage.
Second pressing just for the aQ faithful, LIMITED TO 30 COPIES!!! The packaging is fantastic, every single one slightly different, sizes, shapes, each one a folded up map, the mini dvd-r's affixed to little nubs on the map, liner notes and little photos affixed to other panels of the map, all folded up in a plastic pouch.

BIRGE, JEAN-JACQUES / FRANCIS GORGE / SHIRAC Defense De (MIO Records) cd + dvd 30.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
How 'bout that, we just noticed that this reissue of a rare, super-obscure 1975 improv jazz rock record got a 'review' in one of the latest issues of Vice magazine, of all places! But that kinda makes sense actually, since nudity, drugs, n' sex were seemingly all important elements of Birge/Gorge/Shirac's avant-hippy milieu. That is, judging by the movie on the DVD disc that comes in this deluxe two-disc package, which also features plenty of Vice-worthy fashion do's and don'ts from the freaky French scene back in the mid-seventies! The film in question, La Nuit Du Phoque, is an experimental student opus shot in 1974 by Jean-Jacques Birge and Bernard Mollerat. It's a surreal piece of work that's of course quite dated but certainly amusing and interesting. Political, humorous, psychedelic and very avant garde. Meanwhile Birge and two other cohorts were making crazy music as heard both on the soundtrack of La Nuit Du Phoque and the Defense De album, a truly cult ducument of abstract electronic jazz-prog-psych, one that made it onto the infamous Nurse With Wound list. It was recorded at a friend's dad's apartment who happened to be a free jazz producer and thus kept an 8-track tape recorder and a variety of interesting instruments from pipe organ (!) to cello to xylophone at home. Shiroc was the drummer, Birge played synth, sax, tapes, and more, and Gorge was on guitar, bass, the cello, etc. A friend supplied additional sax and another some electric piano. Sundry other electronics, percussion, ethnic instruments also made into the mix. A big sprawling free-for all, but not an unstructured mess. A lot of this is quite restrained and beautiful, droning and spacious. Apparently, these guys were in high school when they started doing stuff like this! Later they went on to found Un Drame Musical Instantane, an experimental music group still active today. The cd with Defense De contains not only the original LP but also four previously unissued tracks, while the DVD disc not only features the 41-minute La Nuit Du Phoque film but SIX MORE HOURS of previously unreleased Birge/Gorge/Shriac audio! And that's some of the best stuff on here. Wow.
MPEG Stream: "Le Reveil"
MPEG Stream: "Pourrait Etre Brutal"

BISHOP, RICHARD SIR God Damn Religion (Locust) dvd+cd 21.00
Those surviving Sun City Girls are always up to something. Travelling the world, probably. But also releasing stuff. Alan Bishop regularly wows us with amazing field recordings on his Sublime Frequencies label. In the case of "Sir" Richard Bishop we tend to expect his usual guitar improv ragadelica. But what about... a motion picture!?! That's what we have here, a dvd disc containing director SRB's half hour EPIC cinematic bad trip entitled God Damn Religion. It's a colorful, kaleidoscopic, sometimes stroboscopic collage of imagery drawn from the darker side of the human religious experience from around the world, ancient and modern, western and "primitive"... Pretty intense stuff. Frightening, frenzied. An overwhelming procession of sex and violence, hellish tortures and ribald pleasures. Demons and devils. Multilimbed Hindu gods and fallen Christian angels. Suffering sinners. Savage rites. All these gratuitous graphics crammed together like a flip book succession of details from Sun City Girls album covers. A segment (one of many) devoted to depictions of leering, long-tongued devils in the European tradition is followed by footage from a shrine of overgrown sculptural phalluses in Bangkok... Elsewhere SRB drops in scenes of witches and devils cavorting taken from the '20s silent film Haxan, as well as examples of "Buddhist torture paintings" he photographed in Southeast Asia.
We'd guess, rated R. Definitely not for kids, epileptics, or the impressionably Christian. The rest of us should find it quite fascinating, maybe even hypnotic. Maybe you'd even GET religion after being exposed to this, though presumably the idea is to make you sick of it. It's certainly a psychedelic visual experience, like a rapid fire glimpse into the Sun City Girls' graphic archives, and is excellently edited. The soundtrack music by SRB is of course an effective component too...
And in fact as a bonus, the first edition of this dvd comes with an extra disc, a cd version of the previously vinyl-only 2006 SRB album Elektronika Demonika, which is as scary as it sounds, four long tracks of claustrophobic ethno-industrial rhythmic, droney weirdness!! Pretty trippy, a funhouse flying saucer of a noisefest that itself would likely twist your mind even without the disturbing, sexually and demonically-charged visuals that it accompanies as a portion of the soundtrack to the God Damn Religion dvd...
MPEG Stream: "track 1"
MPEG Stream: "track 3"

BJORK Alarm Call (Polygram UK) video 41.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
9 versions of "Alarm Call", including ones by "Bjeck" (Beck), Matmos, Andy Bradfield and Mark Bell. Plus a video directed by Alexander McQueen, bad boy clothing designer.

BJORK Hunter (Polygram UK) video 41.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
6 versions of Hunter spread over three cd singles, some featuring remixes by U-ziq and State of Bengal. Plus the absolutely great Funkstorung remix of "All if Full of Love", and the DJ Krust remix of "So Broken". We don't expect to be able to stock these again, and supplies are very limited.

BJORK Medula Videos (Elektra) dvd 15.98

BJORK Vespertine: Live At Royal Albert Hall 2001 (One Little Indian) dvd 21.00

BLACK HEART PROCESSION Tropics Of Love (Touch & Go) dvd 16.98
The visual accompaniment to Black Heart Procession's wonderful Amor Del Tropico album is actually a murder mystery movie cowritten and directed by Pall Jenkins! Laced with elements of film noir, wit and the band's distinct somber eccentricities, Tropics of Love features no spoken dialogue, instead the story is told through the album's 15 songs which define the fifteen chapters. At times, very David Lynchesque! The dvd also includes trailers, deleted scenes, outtakes, and a handful of previously unreleased instrumentals.

BLACK SABBATH Black Box: The Complete Original Black Sabbath 1970-1978 (Warner Bros. / Rhino) 8cd + dvd box 96.00
For the 35th anniversary of Black Sabbath, Rhino unveils this massive box set collecting in their entirety the eight studio albums by the original Ozzy Osbourne-fronted Black Sabbath line-up. And that's just great, fantastic. But actually I (Allan) personally think something even more substantial is in order for the band that, more than anyone, invented heavy metal -- a physical monument, perhaps a Gothic cathedral to be built in Birmingham England, where their music could be constantly playing on hidden loudspeakers 24-7? Something like that. But then again, they are pretty much my favorite band of all time. There's not room here to explain why, but I'd say Sabbath are in a large part responsible for my fanatical interest in music of all kinds and thus my job here at Aquarius Records. Seriously. The heaviness, the riffs, the emotion, the sincerity, the originality, the love, the darkness, the mystery, the humanity... Black Sabbath stand above all others.
So... anyway this box set gets a hardy recommendation from me. Basically, if you don't already have all the remastered cds of the Ozzy-era albums, then you should BUY THIS. It's a deal. 12 bucks an album, plus a felt-covered 78-page hardback book and a bonus DVD! And we're talking about some of the BEST ALBUMS EVER. Black Sabbath, Paranoid, Master Of Reality, Vol. 4, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Sabotage, Technical Ecstasy, Never Say Die. Ask me to list the top 20 heavy metal albums -- nay, rock and roll albums -- of all time and at least the first six of these will be on it! (Actually, please don't ask me, but you get my point.) The DVD consists of four songs performed live on the German Beat Club TV show, with that great psychedelic early '70s video effects processing. You've probably seen "Iron Man" or "Paranoid" from this before, they show 'em on VH-1 or MTV sometimes. But there's also "Black Sabbath" (dig the extreme close-ups on Ozzy's anguished face as he sings) and their rockin' cover of "Blue Suede Shoes"! Sabbath fans might already have these, though, as they've been available before. The book contains lots of great pictures, a detailed Sabbath timeline, two lengthy essays about the original Sabbath's rise and fall, and (at last!) printed lyrics from all eight albums...the surreal drugged-out poetry of the Sabbath Bloody Sabbath lyrics in particular are brilliant. Lots to pour over here, and even a Sab fan like myself learned somethings (like, it's Tony Iommi, not Ozzy, coughing in the intro to "Sweet Leaf"). Maybe the one unnecessary thing in the book are the celebrity blurbs that litter the pages -- Sabbath don't really need the endorsement of Beck or Henry Rollins, do they?! And I also must complain that nowhere in the band history or timeline does the post-Ozzy Sabbath even get a mention: Ronnie James Dio at least deserves better than that!
The whole set is packaged smartly in, of course, a black box. There's two smaller cardboard slip-case style boxes (labeled 1970-1972 and 1973-1978 respectively) that fit in there with the book, each of 'em holding four digipack cds, with the original album art. The cds themselves are remastered. Sadly, there's not much in the way of extras -- no bonus tracks to speak of (the only one being "Evil Woman" from the UK edition of their debut). But Sabbath weren't a band that recorded a lot of throw-away b-sides or un-issued song demos. After all, these eight albums were from a span of eight years, the first four from just 2 years. So they were quite prolific but it all ended up on their albums -- and what's so amazing is that there's no filler. For the first six albums at least, almost EVERY SONG is great, and contains a riff eternal. That's why they're gods. However, I do think that they could have dug up some live material (there's bootlegs of lots of good stuff) or the rumoured demos from pre-Sabbath incarnation Earth. Too much to hope for I guess. And the DVD could have included more than the Beat Club footage: what about the California Jam or Don Kirschner's Rock Concert or their promotional videos? Oh well. Again, that's only gonna matter to extreme fans like myself, everyone else should be more than satisfied with just the timeless, legendary music from the albums anyway.
MPEG Stream: "Solitude"
MPEG Stream: "It's Alright"

BLACK, FRANK Christmass (Cooking Vinyl) cd+dvd 16.98
An "unplugged" Frank Black lets it all hang out on this limited edition cd and dvd set which compiles live acoustic and studio tracks that he recorded during his summer 2006 solo acoustic tour. The live footage featured on the dvd was shot at a performance in Sacramento, CA on that very same tour. Frankly (ha ha!), he hasn't sounded this good in years. His voice nails all of the far reaches of his broadly expressive range -- alternately intently focused, wildly reckless and lyrically piercing. The recordings are warm, reverb-y and sprinkled with audience hootin' and hollerin'. Some tunes do fare better than others however. Unfortunately like a bull in a china shop, he sorta tramples a few beloved old Pixies classics in the process. They might still please the diehards tho'.
MPEG Stream: "Bullet"
MPEG Stream: "Wave Of Mutilation"

BLOCKS OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE UNBROKEN CONTINUUM s/t (Sound 323) book+dvd 90.00
We here at Aquarius Records can be proud that we have an audience who is just as passionate and devoted as we are to a broad spectrum of musics. As much as we would like to, we just can't completely cover every amazing genre, sub-genre, regional dialect, and radical enclave of the world's musical community. We definitely try our best, but just imagine if we did somehow manage, those biweekly email lists would easily triple in size with our fingers spread even further than they already are. While it would be nice to expand our little aesthetic fiefdom, we have to admit that there are plenty of shops around the globe that fill in the gaps. One of those is London's Sound 323, whose niche market emphasizes all things dealing with academic composition, free improv, electro-acoustics, and in particular the pristine aspects of what has been dubbed the "New London Silence." In fact, one of chief protagonists of this London circle of Feldman-esque composers is Sound 323's proprietor Mark Wastell. He along with The Wire's scribe Brian Marley are the editors of a brick of a book published by Sound 323, handsomely designed as an art edition monograph and filled with articles by David Toop, Clive Bell, Brian Marley, Dan Warburton, Andy Hamilton and Will Montgomery as well as texts expounding upon the eroding distinction between improvisation and composition from the likes of Otomo Yoshihide, Bernhard Gunter, Phil Durrant, Steve Roden, Jerome Noetinger, Mattin, and many many other. The book also features a DVD of concert footage from the likes of Keith Rowe, Evan Parker, John Tilbury, Tetuzi Akiyama, Eddie Prevost, John Butcher, and more. Hmm, curious that all of the latest members of AMM make appearances, but no footage from the ensemble that pretty much started the whole push toward the decentered notion of what is composed beforehand and what is created in the moment.
With sound art becoming more and more of a cultural force in the art world (perhaps that should be art with a capital 'A'), Blocks Of Consciousness And The Unbroken Continuum is bound to be one of those historically important documents, detailing one particular cultural phenomenon as it happens by those who are making it happen. At 350+ pages bound in a hefty hardcover book, this is no easy tome to digest; but is well the effort you'll put into it.

BOREDOMS Live At Sun Flancisco May 2005 (Commons) cd + dvd 56.00
Yeah, we know that this Japanese import dvd+cd set isn't cheap, unfortunately. But we also know that a few of you are died-in-the-wool Boredoms fans who are gonna want it regardless. And it IS pretty cool of course. The dvd portion (NTSC, all-region, 65 minutes) features a full show filmed live in San Francisco, we mean Sun Flancisco, at The Independent back in May of 2005. Several of us here attended that show and this DVD lives up to our cherished memories of that night, a fantastic display of the Boredoms' current psychedelic, rhythmic power. If you haven't seen 'em lately, the lineup here is bandleader/vocalist Eye Yamataka on various electronics and weirdness, alongside not one, not two, but three drummers (ATR, Yoshimi, and Yochan), pounding away. Andee, who participated in the Boredom's 77 drummer Boredrum extravaganza in Brooklyn last summer, says this is a similar piece to the one they played then, minus 74 drummers, but still pretty much the bomb.
The DVD starts off backstage, actually, with the Boredoms, friends, and kids hanging out, then moves to the show itself. At first it's all dark but for some blurry, colorful, moving light-spots and initially we wondered, is this what the whole thing is gonna look like? We wouldn't put it past 'em. But after about five minutes the scene comes into focus, the show having begun with Eye doing a bizarre ritualistic dance with intense sound-making electric "lighting balls" held in each hand. And then it's off to the races, as the drummers attack their kits and do their best to send the Boredoms' special vibrations to the far ends of the cosmos.
The other disc found in this lavishly designed, bright orange package is an audio cd. It's only about twelve minutes long, but what a great 12 minutes (11:40 to be precise)!! Billed as "Yamataka Eye Original Breakbeats" there's two new tracks here, "U-bus" and "Relerer" and both are definite percussive party-pleasers... if your party digs the freaky Bore-tronics, that is!
MPEG Stream: "Relerer"

BORIS Heavy Metal Me (DIWPhalanx) dvd 32.00
It's indeed that time again. Where our customers act like crazy junkies who have FINALLY received their latest fix, which I guess they technically are. Although in this case the drug of choice is Japan's Boris, and the current fix is twofold, the just released full length Pink (reviewed elsewhere on this list) and this here DVD, the misleadingly titled Heavy Metal Me. Boris fans of all stripes will find stuff on here that is essential -- videos, a short film, and two live sets for those of you not lucky enough to see Boris on their recent tour.
First up is a video for the track "A Bao A Qu" from the soundtrack Mabuta No Ura, the perfect visual accompaniment to that track's ambient post rock drift, a sort of languid stroll around town, various band members walking down streets, sitting in parks, shots of skies and trees and shops warehouses and woods. Gorgeously tranquil. The next video is for another track from Mabuta No Ura, can't tell you the title cuz it's in Japanese, but it is an absolutely breathtaking series of abstact landscapes, that are perhaps either pieces of frayed and slowly undulating fabric, or maybe even internal organs, so alien looking and so beautiful.
The short film Heavy Metal Me is up next, a ten minute, super arty silent film with subtitles (in either Japanese or English), super blown out overexposed black and white and scratchy color Super8, very French New Wave, with quite a bit of sitting, and thinking, and walking and standing, lots of static shots and very obtuse subtitles. No sound, just occasionally the sound of no sound, a hissing distant white noise static. Quite beautiful actually!
Returning to the main, music side of Boris, you then get a live performance of "Feedbacker", the full 30 minutes, slow building and totally epic. With the stage drenched in rich colored lights, Wata stands illuminated, completely expressionless and immobile, a statue like guitar God! All the while the drummer and bass player work their way into a rock frenzy as the song reaches its superdistorted fuzz drenched climax.
The bonus track is a live performance of "Flood" in a tiny Japanese club, packed to the gills, with a ceiling just high enough for the band to stand on stage. Twenty minutes of creeping, drifting shimmering guitars and cymbal swells, before the sludge sets in, a monstrous pounding metallic crawl, with stoic guitarist Wata actually, for once, rocking out! Pretty amazing. And will definitely hit the spot for everyone who missed seeing Boris live last month.
As with everything Boris releases, beautifully designed and packaged. Even the menu and the credits look amazing, the credits especially with their dreamy ambient abstract Boris guitarscape accompaniment.

BORIS / GREEN MACHINE / CHURCH OF MISERY / ETERNAL ELYSIUM Wizard's Convention - Japanese Heavy Rock Showcase (DIWPhalanx) dvd 35.00
There's a show coming up you can't miss. Next month, July 9th, Saturday night. ALL NIGHT. The cream of the Japanese stoner sludge crop. All perfroming in the same venue on the same night. Boris, Green Machine, Church Of Misery and Eternal Elysium! (Plus 'special guests' Pelican!) Holy Crap!! C'mon, let's go!! Oh, wait. The tickets may be only $30, but the plane fare to get there is $800, 'cause it's happening in Tokyo, Japan of course. And of course hotels will cost us about $600 for the weekend. And then of course food and all that. So right around $1600, to see the ultimate Japanese Heavy Rock Showcase?! Well, if there ever WAS a show worth $1600, it would probably be this one. Thankfully, we've got this $35 dvd for those of us with a much more sensible show-going budget. Beautifully packaged (designed of course by a certain member of Boris aka Fangs Anal Satan) the Wizard's Convention DVD gathers live footage from all four bands from 2003-2004 at various venues in and around Tokyo. Shot professionally, all the sets are awesome, super high energy, ultra kinetic, wild and rocking, hair flailing, lights flashing, all before very polite (but headbanging) Japanese crowds. The coolest thing about this disc is seeing that most of the purveyors of this filthy, sludgy, crusty, doomy, metallic brutality, are not in fact the scraggly tattooed beasts you imagine when listening to this stuff, instead they all seem to be not-scraggly-at-all skinny ultra cuties. Especially the serial killer obssesed Church Of Misery, who in a different setting could be some kind of boy band. And of course we can never get enough of Boris guitarist Wata whose tiny girl frame belies the crushing guitar god she proves to be, unleashing an ultra heavy torrent of relentless riffing, seemingly without even breaking a sweat.
This DVD is ALL REGION!

BRANCA, GLENN Symphony Nos. 8 & 10 - Live At The Kitchen (Atavistic) dvd 21.00
There's been quite a little resurgence of interest in the eighties downtown NY scene, specifically the guitar orchestras and proto-post rock of Rhys Chatham and Glenn Branca. This DVD features two live performances recorded in 1995 with an unknown (at least to us) ensemble with Branca at the helm conducting. The music is fantastic, dark and propulsive. Repetitive and trance-like, with churning guitars and tribal drums. Sound remarkably similar to AQ favorites Circle or Salvatore. Visually, there's not a whole lot to see, although it is cool to hear what sounds like your basic rock band, but is in fact a large ensemble, with guitar players struggling to 'rock out' but stuck behind their music stands. The visuals do reflect the music quite nicely though, dark and brooding, with spare lighting and lots of empty space on the screen.